Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus, a data processing method, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
The widespread usage of a cloud computing system has introduced a new service which opens various types of software services to the public, which is generally referred to as “Software as a Service (SaaS)”. A service generally referred to as “cloud print service” is an example of SaaS. The cloud print service enables a remote printer connected via a network to print a document stored in a cloud server.
In the cloud print service, it is essentially required to convert various document formats stored in the cloud server into appropriate data that can be interpreted by a wide variety of printers.
To generate print data to be transmitted to a printer, it is conventionally useful to install a device driver program (hereinafter, simply referred to as “printer driver”) on a server apparatus to control a printer to be used and cause the printer driver to perform data conversion.
For example, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-133877, it is conventionally feasible to select an optimum printer driver from a plurality of format conversion modules installed beforehand on a server apparatus based on a received input file and information indicating an output file format. The selected printer driver converts the format of the input file.
Further, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-216064, it is conventionally feasible to prepare a general (or common) driver together with unique printer drivers dedicated to respective models on a server apparatus. The method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-216064 includes performing common print settings to convert a print target into printer independent data (intermediate data) at a “print data generation instruction” stage. The method further includes performing Raster Image Processing (RIP) on the printer independent data using a unique driver dedicated to each model to obtain print data suitable for each model at a “print start instruction” stage.
As discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-133877 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-216064, a server apparatus is required to install a wide variety of printer drivers that are applicable to various printers to be used in printing because the server apparatus requires the printer driver to perform data conversion. Therefore, it takes significant time and labor in the installation and update management.
Further, the number of types of data that are processed by the cloud print service is increasing. Therefore, the server apparatus is required to expand data convertibility. To this end, the server apparatus is forced to do a complicated work to correct all printer drivers installed thereon.